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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805399">I see the Ocean</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis'>duesternis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dreaming, Established Relationship, Fluff, I swear they're gonna be fine, M/M, reading time with john</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:53:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,591</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry steps into the cabin, leaving no space for a hair’s breadth between him and John.<br/>John lets him into his embrace readily.<br/>“Hello, Henry,” he whispers into Henry’s hair and Henry closes his eyes to the press of lips against his scalp.<br/>Kisses John’s shoulder in return.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Bridgens/Henry "Harry" Peglar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I see the Ocean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/gifts">bastaerd</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy birthday jim!! I am so privileged to call you my friend, here's to another year of it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He thinks he dreams.<br/>Must be dreaming, for he isn’t cold.<br/>A balmy breeze billows his shirt around his body, lifts his hair away from his eyes and he sees a beautiful turquoise ocean stretching on for ever and ever.<br/>Overhead fluffy clouds idly drift by, a lone bird circling high above the mast.<br/>Not too far away from shore then, possibly. He cannot make the shape of the bird out against the sun in his eyes.<br/>Henry hooks an elbow into the rigging, adjusts his feet on the yardarm, leans out into the wind and smiles.</p>
<p>Far below him on the deck someone calls, the words lost to the wind, but he knows that tone of voice; would know it everywhere, for all time.<br/>“Coming,” he calls back and nimbly climbs down towards the deck.<br/>His hands know what to do, his feet are sure on the ropes and it feels like the most natural thing to climb.<br/>This is the nicest dream he has had in weeks.</p>
<p>His naked feet hit the deck and there is John, smiling.<br/>His hair is tucked behind his ears, his beard neat and clipped, and Henry loves him, loves him more than the wind dancing around the ship.</p>
<p>“Thought you might be hungry,” says John in lieu of a greeting, the warmth in his eyes is hello enough and Henry only now notices how famished he is.<br/>That must have carried over from being awake.<br/>He is always hungry when he is awake.<br/>And John hands him a plate of fresh fruit, the colours stark and bright and so full of life that Henry wavers where he stands.<br/>“Thank you, John,” he says, looks him in the eye and winks with his right one.<br/>John winks his right one back and Henry bites into a ripe peach, the juice dribbling down, soaking into his shirt sleeve, where it will leave a stain John will wash out, because he loves Henry.<br/>“Good?”<br/>“Perfect.”</p>
<p>They both look out at the sea, the crew around them moving, sailing, paying them no heed.<br/>Henry thinks vaguely that this is his dream, he could kiss John, if he wanted to, in plain sight out here on the deck.<br/>But he doesn’t.<br/>This is their normal and he misses it.<br/>Is glad for this respite, this moment that could almost be plucked from reality.<br/>He finishes the peach, tosses the stone into the water and plucks two grapes from the plate of fruit.<br/>John eats two as well, and it is almost as if they eat them from each other’s hands.</p>
<p>Henry turns to John again, the ship sways under them and they bump shoulders, John smiling warmly, softly, with that hint of melancholy that comes with having seen so many things, having been so many places that you cannot help but miss one of them at all times.<br/>Henry feels that creeping up on him too.<br/>Feels it like a twinge in his joints, a sore muscle he cannot rid himself of.<br/>He misses something at all times, but with John at his side it is easier to miss a little less, to miss something, but not let it pain him.</p>
<p>John would have a word for it – has a word for everything – but Henry is comfortable with the concept alone.<br/>He will try to write it down tonight, scratch away at his notebook with his stub of a pencil and try to find a word that means what he wants it to mean.<br/>“John,” he says, and a ship’s bell rings quarter to something, the dream suffusing itself around Henry.<br/>He still says “I love you” and hopes that the John in his dream heard him.<br/>That he blushes and smiles and squeezes Henry’s forearm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Henry wakes up to someone crying in the hammock next to him.<br/>A ship’s boy, he thinks, but it’s dark and not every man has his own hammock, crowded as things are.<br/>They swap sometimes.<br/>“Are you alright,” he whispers into the dark and the man next to him hiccups through a sob and then a clammy hand reaches for Henry.<br/>He holds it, shushes the man.<br/>For it must be a man, with hands that big, that calloused.<br/>Henry comforts him as well he can, keeping as quiet as he can.<br/>They fall asleep holding hands, but Henry finds the hammock empty when he wakes in the morning.</p>
<p>Goes to say hello to John in his little cabin, hardly more than a bunk behind a curtain, but it is John’s and therefore Henry’s by extension.<br/>He keeps his things here.<br/>All his important things in one place.<br/>“Hello,” he says and pokes his head behind the curtain.</p>
<p>John is dressing himself, chest still bare as he shakes out his shirt.<br/>Henry steps into the cabin, leaving no space for a hair’s breadth between him and John.<br/>John lets him into his embrace readily.<br/>“Hello, Henry,” he whispers into Henry’s hair and Henry closes his eyes to the press of lips against his scalp.<br/>Kisses John’s shoulder in return.</p>
<p>Henry’s hands must be cold against John’s naked back, but he doesn’t complain. Never complains and Henry kisses his shoulder again.<br/>Counts twenty of John’s heartbeats and then steps back.<br/>They smile at each other and Henry winks his right eye.<br/>John winks his right eye.</p>
<p>“I had a dream,” Henry says and stands by the curtain to leave room for John to finish dressing.<br/>“What about?”<br/>“Sailing. Fruit.”<br/>John stops doing up the buttons of his vest and looks at Henry. Smiles.<br/>Henry loves that John never does two things when he thinks how much he loves Henry.<br/>He either finishes his buttons, or looks at Henry, thinking of love.<br/>Never both.<br/>It makes Henry feel very important, and quite loved.</p>
<p>He winks his right eye again and John touches his right forefinger to his left eye.<br/>“I will see you later,” Henry says, cheeks warm with that quiet elation of being called beautiful.<br/>John nods and finishes his buttons.<br/>“Have a good morning, Henry.”<br/>“And you, John.”<br/>It feels good to start his day with John.</p>
<p>Henry knows he will end it with John too and the next day just the same.<br/>Being so close together, so far from home, is a blessing that not many of the men share.<br/>They are most all of them far from their loved ones and Henry sees their misery in the quiet hours, the idle minutes.<br/>Is glad he does not have to share in it, John just there, always there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Henry,” John says, bending over the lamp by which Henry is affixing a loose button on a pair of trousers.<br/>“John,” Henry answers, smiling at him, resting his needlework in his lap.<br/>“Would you care to join me for a bit of reading?”<br/>“Gladly, let me just finish this and I shall join you.”<br/>John squeezes Henry’s shoulder, blinks a yes and then moves quietly towards his cabin.<br/>Henry watches him as long as he can and then finishes the trousers, stitches neat and quick, but the knots never pass muster when John watches him.<br/>Sailor’s knots on buttons, but they hold the twine as well as the lines, so they serve for Henry.<br/>Thinks that is nevertheless a pleasure to watch John sew.</p>
<p>He doesn’t bother knocking, just slips behind the curtain and finds John sitting on his berth, by a dimmed lamp, reading.<br/>“Hello,” he says and John looks up, smiling.<br/>“Hello.”<br/>He takes a book from the shelf, not bothering to check which one he picked and sits where John left space for him by the lamp.<br/>Their thighs touch and Henry lets his shoulders slump, exhaustion like a cloak over his shoulders.<br/>John’s warm hand between his shoulder blades rubs some life back into him.<br/>“Rough day?”<br/>He looks at John, smiles tired and nods.<br/>“Long and cold and I’m glad for its end.”</p>
<p>Henry puts a hand on John’s knee, thumb stroking the inseam of his trousers until John puts his own hand over Henry’s.<br/>“I am also glad for its end, but only for getting to spend it with you.”<br/>Henry, with a little chuckle, tilts his head, resting his cheek on John’s shoulder and John starts reading from the book in his lap and Henry closes his eyes.<br/>They started the story a few nights ago, but Henry is so tired lately, that he can barely recall what happened last night.</p>
<p>He still takes comfort in it, in John’s warm, low voice, the broad hand covering his own and the smell of John’s skin so close to him.<br/>If they could only sit like this in the sun, in a little garden, surrounded by bees and flowers and with tea on the table, a kitten in Henry’s lap as John reads.<br/>Henry smiles, squeezes John’s knee and John squeezes his hand in return.<br/>“I love you, John,” he whispers into the warmth of his hair, and – a moment later, at the end of the paragraph – John turns his head and kisses Henry’s brow twice.<br/>“And I you, Henry. Another chapter?”<br/>“Please,” yawns Henry and settles in more firmly, to let the tides of John’s voice lull him to sleep in lieu of the waves from his last dream.</p>
<p>He cannot imagine life without either, and promises himself firmly that he will never have to.<br/>They will be together for the rest of their days, and the sea, the sea, the open sea will take them home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>widely inappropriate for this to be my 69th fic (nice lol), but it's still special</p>
<p>John and Henry take part in something called "Eye Flirtation" here's a sheet that explains it: https://duesternis.tumblr.com/post/633935885434552320/nevver-how-to-have-a-office-romance-on-zoom</p></blockquote></div></div>
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